Pakistan's blasphemy vigilantes kill exonerated man
By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN
April 14, 2011 -- Updated 0956 GMT (1756 HKT)
Blasphemy vigilantes track down victim
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Despite being cleared of blasphemy, Mohamed Imran was killed by vigilantes
* Some observers see climate of rage around blasphemy laws as part of rise
in fundamentalism in Pakistan
* Punjab governor Salman Taseer and minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti also
killed for criticizing blasphemy laws
Talahore, Pakistan (CNN) -- Mohamed Imran had been accused, jailed, tried and
cleared: if anything, society owed him a debt as a man wrongfully accused.
But his crime was blasphemy. He was meant to have said something derogatory
about the prophet Mohammed, so in Pakistan justice worked a little differently.
Two weeks after he returned to his small patch of farmland on the rustic
outskirts of Islamabad, his alleged crime caught up with him.
Two gunmen burst into the shoe shop where he was sat talking to a friend. Imran
tried to duck, to seek cover behind the man next to him -- terrified so greatly
for his own life that he perhaps forgot about those around him.
But the gunmen found their target and Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws
claimed another victim.
His brother Ikram told CNN: "When I saw him lying there, I felt the blood leave
my body, and that I was now alone."
When I saw him lying there, I felt the blood leave my body, and that I was now
alone.
--Ikram Imran, brother of blasphemy vigilante victim
Pakistan's blasphemy laws under scrutiny
2010: Sentenced to death for blasphemy
RELATED TOPICS
* Pakistan
* Shahbaz Bhatti
* Religion
Now Ikram has only his brother's unmarked grave to visit, next to the plot of
land close to what was once the source of Mohamed Imran's livelihood. This
farmland no longer feeds his family, who have moved away to live under the
charity of a friend. The threats remained.
We found his daughter, four-year old Kazma who knew her father was dead but
somehow felt he would come back. His wife was in tears, but remarkably
maintained that the blasphemy laws were important as they protect the Muslim
faith. It was hard to tell whether she believed that or was speaking out of
self-preservation.
Two high-profile politicians have this year been assassinated for their
criticism of the blasphemy laws: Punjab governor Salman Taseer and minorities
minister (and Christian) Shahbaz Bhatti.
Some observers see their deaths and the climate of rage around the blasphemy
laws as symptomatic of a broader rise in fundamentalist tendencies in Pakistan.
Others say that religion is all many people have, given the levels of poverty
and state dysfunction, and that they don't like it being insulted. It's
reported that more than 30 of the hundreds of people convicted under the
blasphemy laws have been killed by vigilantes. The state has yet to execute
anyone for this crime.
The curious part about this blasphemy case -- and many other such convictions
and allegations under the controversial law -- is that they do not specify what
the accused is meant to have said.
The first complaint delivered to the police in 2009 refers to a conversation
Imran allegedly had with another man in a cafe, but says the exact blasphemous
phrase cannot be repeated as that too would be an act of blasphemy.
By the time we get to the court appearance earlier this year, the charge is
clearer (but we won't repeat it here, given the sensitivity of the matter). You
are left wondering whether by this stage of the case many had already found
reason to damn Imran.
All the same, this level of evidence was not enough for the judge, who released
Imran. But it was enough for the gunmen.
We went into the nearby town to talk to clerics at the local mosque. Some
accused these holy men of fueling the anger against Imran. Incidentally, Imran
was a Shia, and hence a minority often targeted in Pakistan.
As soon as we got out of the car near the mosque and showed our cameras,
tempers frayed. They didn't care why we were there, they just saw us as
outsiders, perhaps American spies.
We left promptly, ever more aware of the growing rage on Pakistan's ordinary
streets, fueled by generations of poverty, decades of what many see as
government ineptitude and years of foreign intervention.
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